Uninvited

I am fuming mad right now. My door has been knocked on twice this morning by these kids going around collecting "points", whatever that is. I don't humor them long enough to allow explanation. The fact is that any product worth buying, charity worth donating to, or church worth converting to will draw attention to itself without resorting to telemarketing or door-to-door tactics, and I do mean tactics. These people will introduce themselves as your neighbor, or attempt the most crass small talk as I'm standing there in my PJ's... braless, barefoot, holding back my 80lb labrador and 2 toddlers. I feel poetry is a great outlet for anger. Here goes...

Autumn's Ode to Door-to-Door
I did not invite you over, you are not my friend, you are not my neighbor.
You have insulted my intelligence, and interrupted my sewing groove.
Get a life, and a brain while you’re at it.
No, my dog is not happy to see you.
If you don't believe me, ask our handi-capable UPS Guy.


Well it's not haiku or iambic pentameter...but hey, I think I will make a sweet little cross stitch out of it and hang it on the front door.

Making Stuff Makes a Mess

I've come to the conclusion that the only way to get things made before a craft show is to dump my fabric stash all over the floor, then go diving and see what inspires me. Well, that or not procastinate.

I've set my fiber obsession aside for a bit...It's GO TIME! Gypsey Caravan and The Rock N' Roll Craft Show are less than 2 weeks away. If it weren't for my kids, I would just chain myself to my worktable. I shouldn't even be blogging. Doug has been warned that only the bare minimum housework will be done, and that he'll be dining on the coffee table till then. Mostly right now I am cutting patterns, here are a couple wallets sort of pieced together:


I used the same pattern I had made for my popular felt wallets, only I got inspired to do these sort of collage-like motifs instead of felt appliques. I'll sew on all the little pieces with funky zig-zag stitch and such. I have 10 so far(each one of a kind), I want to make 20 wallets total, please vote if you think I should make them all crazy fabric collages or should I do the rest with the felt appliques of coffee, skulls, owls, turtles, etc?

A Diet Rich in Fiber

I got all my spinning stuff I ordered! The wool is FANTASTIC. Three cheers for The Sheep Shed Studio. There is about a pound of ridiculously soft pure white roving, and a pound of 85% wool, 15% mohair that is just to die for...look at that sheen!.. The pink strips throughout is a watersoluble dye that indicates it's mohair. These mill-ends are from the factory that creates Lamb's Pride Yarns. Carol also included a "Thank You" bag of very yummy looking caramel /white colored wool..about 8 oz! It's beautiful!

See Autumn. See Autumn loving wool. See Shannon reaching for her Epipen just from looking this.

The spindle and book are from Mielke's Farm. I did a lot of research before I ordered. The book is pretty good, but I don't think it explains how to draft the fibers in depth enough. However, it does explain a lot of different spindle techniques that I'm sure will come in handy. I have a bone to pick with the spindle. It's heavier than I expected, much heavier than the CD one I learned on. It's also a little wobbly. I'm breaking a lot of yarn.I've been debating if this is from my newbieness, the roving...but after a few hours of practice I have a good feel for the twist and draft and it's looking really good if I support it somewhat, but "dropping" it like you are supoosed to be able to do is out of the question. I wish I had a scale. I am actually going to take it up to the coffee shop and weigh it this afterrnoon. Hey Louet, you're suspect!

Last night I found an awesome online magazine called Spindlicity. I love the articles and it has some really cute knitting patterns for handspun. One of thier sponsors, Simple Market Farms has some gorgeous inexpensive, obviously well-made spindles on their site. Hopefully Doug forgot to get me something for Mother's Day and I can guilt him into buying me "The Spindle Collectors Package".

I have a dream or 2, or 3...

I keep having to remind myself why I am putting myself through all the toil of making a couple thousand dollars worth of merchandise for Gypsey Caravan and The Rock and Roll Craft Show, which are mere weeks away.
My current PC is 10 years old. I've gutted it and replaced everything but the motherboard umpteen times...she's one ugly old hag. This shiny new Dell Inspiron is exponentially faster. I have found them refurbished on Ebay for $600-$700, so I may go that route.

Next on my list:


Swift MegaView™ 30x80 Wide Angle Binocular
This Premium Giant Will Captivate You with High Definition Images
$499.95

Yeah that's right, binoculars, but these are not for birdwatching my friends! My telescope is rather large and I live in the middle of some wicked light pollution


If I get uber lucky and sell over $1000 worth of stuff I will probably throw it into the savings..or books...or acid dyes for yarn...oh dear.

You Spin me Right Round

I've had the spinning bug for almost a year now, I learned how to do it even before I learned how to knit. It all started when Allison and I made our way out to the "Bohemian Art Fair" in Soulard last summer. As cool as that sounds like it would be, pickings were pretty slim vendor-wise. The first tent we saw was Twilight's Dream Fiber's (http://www.twilightsdream.com). This little redheaded gal was going to town on a spinning wheel, and had oodles of beautiful handspun yarns, colorful rovings, books, etc. for sale. I loved what I saw, but at this point was in knitting denial. I was knee-deep in sewing projects, and thought it just wasn't for me. However, I was intrigued. Crystal (spinning redhead girl) pointed to the bouquet of cd drop spindles she had made, and offered to teach me how to drop spin. It's odd and scary at first, but then before I knew it, I magically had a slubby white, rather short skein of yarn wrapped around the dowel. I don't think "Giddy" describes my excitement at this point well enough. I was downright full of glee jumping up and down, yet the whole time wondering what I was going to do with all the yarn I now had plans to spin since I don't knit. I went home with my cd spindle and a bag full of rainbow colored roving with great intentions. Ooh dear, back to reality, I had lots of purses and things to sew for an upcoming craft show. I dreamt of spinning though, and was determined at that point to learn to knit. I went straight to Joanne's after said craft show to pick up some worsted weight and #8 needles, then sat down that night and taught myself to knit. Which of course I found to be wildly addicting in it's own rite. Recently I've been drooling over, even purchased some handspun yarn on Etsy. This is a little silly, me thinks, but I found my CD spindle had been broken somehow, probably from stash smooshing in the closet. So, after much research I purchased a real spindle this morning from mielkesfarm.com!


Louet Top Whorl Spindle

SPINDLE SPINNING: FROM NOVICE TO EXPERT, Connie Delaney.

From what I've read, this spindle has a nice weight that spins both thick and thin yarns. The book, though not by any means fancy, not even in color, was given splendid reviews on Amazon.
I have some roving, but just to be safe (hehe) ordered 2 lbs of mill-ends from http://www.thesheepshedstudio.com
That's all fine and dandy, but unless I want all white yarn I'll need to start learning how to dye yarn and roving as well.

Oh geez! I so have my priorities in order don't I? Gypsy Caravan and Rock and Roll Craft Show are in less than a month. Yeah, I know, back to the sewing machine with me before my goodies get here!